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  I turned and looked at Elyse.

  “I don’t think your friend would mind if I took care of these two assholes.”

  “No,” she said. “I think he’d be quite happy, actually.”

  “On three, we show ourselves. Those two chumps don’t know it yet, but they’ve got about five seconds of life left. You two ready?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. One, two, three!”

  We burst out of the grape vines, and the soldiers scrambled to draw their swords, shouting and cursing with surprise. I peppered the closest soldier with throwing stars, flinging five at him in rapid succession. They struck him in the face, throat, torso, and both legs. Within seconds, the ravenous necrotic rot was devouring his entire body, and he fell to the ground screaming.

  The next soldier managed to draw his sword and charged at me with a wordless roar. I toyed with him for a while, laughing and ducking and bobbing and weaving as I dodged his clumsy thrusts and slashes. After a while, I tired of this, though, and darted past his guard and plunged Grave Oath into the side of his neck. As the enchanted blade sucked the soul out of his convulsing body, Elyse walked over to the manager, who was standing with his jaw hanging wide open with shock and his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

  “Grast,” she said, “it’s good to see you.”

  “Elyse!” he gasped. “You’re alive!” He rushed over to her on his stumpy legs and threw his arms around her in a tight hug.

  “Praise the Lord of Light!” he exclaimed. “You’ve come just in time. Bishop Nabu’s tyranny and evil knows no bounds. Look what he’s done here: these workers have been enslaved, I’ve been tortured, and his thug soldiers rule this vineyard with whips and wanton brutality. We need you back, Elyse. We need a noble bishop. We need you back in the cathedral. Life under Nabu has been—it’s been hell, really. I can’t think of any other way to describe it.”

  “Well, that’s exactly why I’ve come, Grast,” she said. “To take back what is rightfully mine and to restore peace and justice to Erst. And my new friends—Vance Chauzec, Lord of Brakith, and the enjarta Rami of Yeng—are going to help me. But to get to Nabu, we need your help, too.”

  Elyse proceeded to explain her plan with the vineyard manager’s wagon, and as she did, a smile began to break across his face. He didn’t even seem fazed by the fact that there’d be a bunch of skeletons and an undead man-eating lizard in the wagon.

  “If it means the death of that evil bastard Nabu,” he said, “I’ll do whatever you want me to. I’ll even drive the wagon myself; that way, the guards at the cathedral won’t inspect the contents.”

  “Oh, thank you, Grast!” Elyse gave him a big hug.

  “All right, let’s go,” he said. “I assume you heard what the soldiers said? Nabu is expecting a shipment before midnight. If we set off within the next half hour, we should make it.”

  We helped the laborers unload the wagon and then got ourselves and the skeletons in. Getting Fang to climb on board proved to be a little tricky. He seemed to be developing a bit of a will of his own and didn’t particularly fancy stuffing himself into a cramped space. But he was a loyal beast too, and with some insistence, I persuaded him to get in.

  I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he saw what he had been delivered instead of his precious barrels of wine.

  Chapter Nine

  The wagon ride felt pretty tame after spending the whole day on Fang’s back, counterbalancing his swaying, nauseating gait. It had been a fun ride, for sure, and I almost missed it, but I didn’t think Elyse did. I’d seen her face turning green at times on Fang’s back, when he raced over particularly rough stretches, with uneven, loose rocks or grass-covered holes. Now, on the wagon, we were rolling along at a slow, steady pace, and Elyse was looking pretty relieved. She sat next to Rami, the two of them sitting just behind me and Grast, who was driving.

  We didn’t talk much at first, but suddenly, Grast passed me his wineskin.

  “Something to wet your whistle for the journey, Soultaker?” he asked with a kindly smile. Grast, it turned out, had heard of me. My reputation had been growing in leaps and bounds in recent times.

  “Sure, thanks. And you can call me ‘Vance.’”

  I took the wineskin and slugged back a mouthful of what I had assumed would have been wine. Instead, it felt as if I had taken a mouthful of liquid fire. It burned its way down, leaving reminders of its passing down the length of my gullet. Grast watched with an amused grin on his lips and glee sparkling in his eyes.

  “Careful there, my friend,” he said as he took the wineskin back. “This Yorish brandy is strong stuff!”

  I nodded, tight-lipped, trying to shake off the odd feeling that the liquor would burn its way out of my stomach and spread dragonfire over all my organs. Eventually, I coughed and spoke, my voice raspy.

  “Uh, yeah, I’m no stranger to Yorish brandy, Grast. You could have told me that’s what was in your wineskin before handing it to me, though!”

  He roared with laughter and clapped me heartily on my back.

  “I only didn’t tell ‘cause I knew you could handle it, Soul—ahem, sorry—Vance. After all, a man who’s fought three vampires simultaneously and killed ‘em all should be able to handle a mouthful of Yorish brandy, shouldn’t he? And, um… you really did that, right? Fought three vampires at once, yeah?”

  I wiped my burning lips with the back of my hand and nodded. “Yeah, I did. And it wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I don’t expect it was. Even the most seasoned warriors would have trouble with a single vampire, let alone three. Me, I’d be running for the bloody hills if I even heard a rumor about a vampire being nearby!” He laughed.

  I chuckled back. “Once you get the hang of fighting ‘em, it’s not so tough. Not that I’d deliberately go around looking to fight multiple vampires at once, mind you. But I’m sure I could hold my own against a bunch of ‘em again, if it came down to it.” I thought about my undead hiding out in the wagon. They’d be invulnerable to a vampire’s charms.

  “After what I witnessed earlier, I have no trouble believing that,” said Grast, almost shyly.

  Was this guy a fan of mine or something? I wondered if he was going to ask for a personal blessing. It sure seemed like it.

  “Another sip of brandy?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I answered, and this time, I took a much more cautious sip. Even a seasoned drinker like myself needed to take it easy when it came to grog like Yorish brandy.

  “Would it be okay if I ask you,” said Grast as he took the wineskin back from me, “about some of your famous exploits? I’ve, well, I’ve heard the stories, y’see… but it’d be quite something to hear ‘em from the mouth of the star of the epic.”

  “Go right ahead. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”

  “Yes, please,” said Elyse, leaning forward and smiling strangely at me. “Tell us all about your wondrous deeds, Vance.”

  “I’d also like to hear the tales from the lips of the man who lived through them,” said Rami eagerly, her dark eyes glowing with excitement.

  “All right, all right, one at a time, one at a time now,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m not any different from the next guy when it comes down to it, you know. I’ve just done some… interesting stuff.”

  “Like the time you killed the Viscount of Ilinera,” Grast said, “and then slept with his wife. While his corpse was still warm in the bed next to her!”

  I laughed out loud at that one. Elyse stared at me with a look of horror on her face (although in her eyes, there was an unmistakable sparkle of mischievous amusement), while Rami gasped with unabashed delight.

  “That’s not the whole story,” I said, “and I’m sure the version you’ve heard has been embellished.”

  “Well, if that’s not the whole story,” said Rami, “go on and tell us what really happened.”

  “First of all, I didn’t sleep with the viscount’s wife after I killed hi
m.” I paused for effect, and I laughed when Rami started slapping me on the arm to make me continue. “Well, okay, I did, but I was just finishing what I’d started with her before that asshole walked in on us.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Elyse, staring at me with a look that was half amazement, half mortification, “you were in the process of… making love to the viscount’s wife. Then, he walked in on you two, and then you killed him in front of his wife, who you’d just been… doing that to, and then you, you two just carried on doing it, with his fresh corpse in the room?”

  “In the bed, next to us,” I said with a matter-of-fact nod. “And it was her idea. I felt a little weird about it, but she was really into it. I mean, I don’t know, maybe she was just into what we’d been doing before so much that she couldn’t get around to thinking about her dead husband with me still there, and still… ready, if you know what I mean.”

  “She wanted to have sex with you next to her dead husband?” asked Rami, her sensuous mouth hanging open with disbelief.

  “Look, in my defence, the Viscount of Ilinera was a serial cheater. He spent more time at the local whorehouses than he did with his wife, who was young, sexy, energetic, and beautiful, so who the hell knows why he did what he did? But anyway, she was more than sick and tired of it, so for her, it was the ultimate revenge. Though he’d been unfaithful for a long time, he’d only been able to do it with women who wanted his cash. His wife more than bested him by doing it with someone… well, like me. And if she wanted to screw me, who was I to complain? The man was less than nothing to me.”

  Everyone laughed, especially Grast, who was sucking back Yorish brandy like there was no tomorrow.

  “You truly are like a hero of legend!” he exclaimed, still roaring with side-splitting laughter. “No, scrap the ‘like’; you’re a living legend. Tell us another story! Like, uh, let me think… How about when you wrestled a giant from the north to settle a bet and won the Thunder God’s warhammer from him, with which you can strike down your enemies with bolts of lightning.”

  I chuckled and shook my head. “That one, I have to admit, has had so much added to it that it’s just gotten ridiculous. Don’t you think, if I actually had the God of Thunder’s warhammer, I’d have whipped it out and used it by now? No, there was no warhammer. I did wrestle a giant from the north, but he wasn’t an actual giant. He was a giant of a man, a big,blond northern barbarian, seven foot tall and with as much meat on him as a big bear, and I wrestled him to make a point. Yeah, a huge man, but not an actual giant. It was a game, really, just me having some fun. I don’t know how that one made it to the annals.”

  “What was the point you were trying to make?” asked Rami.

  “Oh, you know how those types are. Their menfolk look down on us southern men. They say we’re a bunch of pussies because we don’t live in year-round frostbite-inducing cold. I told that big asshole that enjoying beer in the summer sun didn’t make me any less of a man than him. He disagreed, so I told him I’d prove it… and I did.”

  Grast sighed, looking disappointed. “I really wanted to believe that story. The God of Thunder’s hammer. What I’d give to see that in person, to watch it blast out a fork of lightning!”

  “Well, we shouldn’t be talking about all this nonsense and superstition about old, dead gods anyway,” muttered Elyse sourly. “The Lord of Light is the one true god, and the others are just… old rumors.”

  I figured that she perhaps wasn’t quite ready to hear about Isu, so I simply flashed her a little smile and nodded. Before I could say anything, though, Rami spoke up.

  “I don’t think the old gods are as ‘dead’ as you believe they are,” she said to Elyse. “And they’re certainly not mere figures of superstition. Their powers are as real now as they were 5,000 years ago. Your Church of Light may have come to dominate Prand, but elsewhere in this world, many people are still devoted to the old gods.”

  “Is that why you’re after Bishop Nabu?” I asked. From the way Rami had been talking, I had a hunch that the mysterious item she was seeking, the thing that Nabu had stolen, had something to do with the old gods.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Nabu stole a most valuable relic from Yeng: an amulet that once belonged to the God of Wind. When I take it back, I will be able to unleash the power of the Eastern Gale. It will be of great value to the hieromonk of my monastery. And to myself. I have studied and trained for years so that I might wield the power of the amulet.”

  “Well, don’t get your hopes up,” said Elyse with a tinge of spite in her voice. “Those gods died a long time ago, and whatever relics of theirs are still in existence belong in museums. There is no power left in such things.”

  The sudden vibration of Grave Oath in its sheath said otherwise. It was almost like it was trying to make a point, reminding me that Elyse’s words betrayed her ignorance. I wasn’t about to bring this up, though; Elyse wasn’t ready to hear that I had a part of the very-much-living Goddess of Death strapped around my waist, and she definitely wasn’t ready to hear that I was feeding said goddess a healthy diet of human souls in order to gain ever more potent magical powers.

  The dagger began vibrating with increasing intensity, and I glanced down and saw that the demon’s head pommel was glowing. I could sense Isu’s presence in our immediate vicinity, and I figured that she wanted to talk to me but didn’t want to show herself in front of the others.

  “Hey, Grast,” I said, “that Yorish brandy is running straight through me. I’m gonna jump off the wagon and take a piss in the woods real quick.”

  “Go right ahead, Soul—Vance,” he said, before taking another swig from his wineskin. “It seems that my bladder is more accustomed to this Yorish delicacy than yours is!” he said with a laugh.

  I hopped off the wagon and walked briskly into the cover of the trees, which hid banks of thick fog, glowing white blankets infused with silvery light from the full moon above. The ox wagon was rumbling so slowly along the road that I probably would have had the time to take a leisurely dump and read a couple of news scrolls before they got too far ahead. That wasn’t the reason I had come here, though, and the real reason showed itself—herself—soon enough.

  A chilly breeze whipped through the trees and started swirling like a little tornado in the middle of a dense shred of fog. As if there were invisible hands manipulating this potter’s wheel of air and fog, the spinning, glowing white vapor began to take on the form of a woman.

  I recognized her body immediately, of course; just the night before, I’d had it in my arms, deliciously warm in her human form and shuddering with raw lust. Even now, looking at her gloriously perky fog-tits and that generous round ass, I began to feel a familiar throbbing between my legs.

  The fog finally added to the body a beautiful face with a cascade of silky hair, and Isu’s hypnotic eyes opened to stare at me, glowing fiercely with the silver light of the moon, concentrated and amplified.

  “Thank you for all the new souls you delivered to me, Vance,” she purred.

  She drifted silently toward me across the carpet of leaves. Though the wind had been icy when it had rushed past before, it now emitted a radiant heat.

  “You have served me well,” she said when she was close enough to whisper.

  I chuckled dryly and folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not serving you. And I’m not worshipping you. We’re working together. I told you, there’s only one person I truly serve.”

  “Yourself, yes, I know.” She rolled her eyes and pouted. “Regardless, as you have learned by now, the more souls you give me, the more powers I am able to give you. And now, I’m ready to give you a new one, which will allow you to—”

  “Hold up,” I interrupted her. “Listen, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate what you’ve done; this whole exchange is working out really well for me. But instead of you giving me random ones, how about I choose what powers I’d like to get from you?”

  Anger flashed across her face, as clear as lightning
against a dark sky. She suppressed it quickly, though, and gave me a tight-lipped smile.

  “I do like you, mortal,” she said, her tone icy, “but I think you may be forgetting your place. It is not for mortal men to make demands of goddesses.”

  “I’m not making demands, just putting forward a suggestion that I think will be beneficial to both of us. I mean, if I get powers that I really want, that I know will be more useful to me in terms of increasing my kill count, then you get more souls, and your own power increases much more rapidly. See? It’s a win-win situation. That is your goal, isn’t it—to get more souls, more power, as quickly as you can?”

  Again, her eyes lit up with quick, hot wrath, but this time, it was because she knew I was right. And Isu, Goddess of Death, was someone who hated being wrong. But she was pragmatic, too, at least when it came to decisions that would lead to her being fed more souls.

  “You make an interesting point,” she admitted, trying to sound casual. “I suppose I could consider your request and bestow certain requested powers upon you, should I choose to do so.”

  It was easy enough to see where this chess match of wills was going. She knew I was right, but her pride forced her to make it seem like it was her idea, as well as requiring her to feel like she was always in control of which powers she gave me. Even if I was the one asking for specific powers. Whatever, if this was what it took to get the exact powers I wanted and needed, I was confident enough in my own position of strength that I could let her win this superficial ego battle.

  “Of course,” I said, “it would be entirely up to you to decide. I’d only be, uh, making suggestions. It would be your choice as to whether you deemed me worthy of receiving such powers. That’s all I’m trying to get at, really.”

  A smile flickered on her lips, and it was mirrored in her glowing eyes. I could see that this was a compromise she was willing to make, and a boost of quiet triumph surged through me. I did not, however, let it show on my face.